• Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Elista
In 1965, on the 20th anniversary of the Soviet victory in the »Great Patriotic War«, a commemorative stele honouring the Holocaust victims of south Russian Elista was erected at the Gashun ravine.
Image: Elista, after 1965, Monument in the Gashun ravine, Nauchno-prosvetitel'skij Tsentr »Holocaust«, Elya Saryayeva
Elista, after 1965, Monument in the Gashun ravine, Nauchno-prosvetitel'skij Tsentr »Holocaust«, Elya Saryayeva
Elista, at the time capital of the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, was occupied by German troops on August 13, 1942. At the end of August, the newly established Sonderkommando »Astrachan« (mobile killing unit) under the command of Hauptsturmführer Rolf Maurer reached the town. In September, the twelve members of the Sonderkommando began registering all the Jews in Elista. At the end of September, Sonderkommando »Astrachan« took 80 to 100 Jews into the steppes where a mass grave had already been prepared and shot them there. According to Soviet accounts 93 families counting around 300 members were murdered. Maurer and his men shot all the town's Jews – family after family.
Time and again Sonderkommando »Astrachan« also shot civilians, who refused to collaborate with the Germans, under the pretext of being »partisans«.
Image: Elista, after 1965, Monument in the Gashun ravine, Nauchno-prosvetitel'skij Tsentr »Holocaust«, Elya Saryayeva
Elista, after 1965, Monument in the Gashun ravine, Nauchno-prosvetitel'skij Tsentr »Holocaust«, Elya Saryayeva
Between 80 and 100 Jewish children, women and men - according to Soviet accounts 300 - perished in the murder operation of Sonderkommando »Astrachan«.
In 1965, sculptor Dzhangar Pyurveev designed a commemorative stele to honour the »over 800 murdered civilians and partisans« of Elista.
Image: Elista, September 9, 2004, Commemoration ceremony, Nauchno-prosvetitel'skij Tsentr »Holocaust«, Elya Saryayeva
Elista, September 9, 2004, Commemoration ceremony, Nauchno-prosvetitel'skij Tsentr »Holocaust«, Elya Saryayeva

Name
Pamjatnik na meste unitschtoshenija ewreew goroda Elisty
Address
Balka (ravine) Gashun
359180 Elista
Phone
+7 847 225 857 1
Open
The memorial is accessible at all times.